Which is My LOUDEST Car?! Testing COLD STARTS with a Decibel Meter

It's time for an experiment with a decibel meter let's find out which is the loudest of the Shmeemobiles! From the Clio and Taycan EV, through to the big naturally aspirated engines of the STO, GT8 and SLS Black Series. Is my ascending list going to turn out to be right?!

We've got a fair few cars at the garage to try here, with the initial 'Max' reading on the cold start followed by taking a reading with the idle cold start running. When it comes to dB readouts, it's a logarithmic scale where effectively going from 70 to 80 you are getting twice as loud, 70 to 90 is 4 times as loud; same for 80 to 100. By way of a benchmark, we can also listen to a phone alarm clock to have something very normal by which to compare. In total we're taking readings for:

Renault Clio 1.2

Porsche Taycan Turbo S

Audi RS3 Saloon

Mercedes-AMG GT R Roadster

Aston Martin V8 Vantage Roadster

Toyota GR Yaris (Milltek exhaust)

Mercedes-AMG G63 (Akrapovic exhaust)

Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Black Series (Custom exhaust)

McLaren 675LT Spider

BMW M3 Competition (REMUS exhaust)

Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series (RENNtech exhaust)

Aston Martin Vantage GT8

Lamborghini Huracan STO

Ferrari 812 GTS (Novitec exhaust)

So... does it go as expected? Let's find out.